


Healing

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e18 The Waterbending Master, Ficlet, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 13:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18499483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: Now that she’s seen the girl’s resemblance to Kanna, it’s hard for Yugoda to see anything else on her face. Each move Katara’s features make, each expression, is just as she remembers Kanna’s to have been.  And when the girl comes to approach her in the Healing Huts, Yugoda is able for an instant to imagine that she’s sixty years younger, that her one-time best friend ishere, in front of her, with that defiant glint in her eye.





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a treat for the Purimgifts exchange, but I didn't quite finish it in time!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Now that she’s seen the girl’s resemblance to Kanna, it’s hard for Yugoda to see anything else on her face. Each move Katara’s features make, each expression, is just as she remembers Kanna’s to have been. And when the girl comes to approach her in the Healing Huts, Yugoda is able for an instant to imagine that she’s sixty years younger, that her one-time best friend is _here_ , in front of her, with that defiant glint in her eye.

“Master Pakku agreed to take me on as a student,” Katara says, a ghost of that same defiance on her face too—but slightly subtler, as though she’s trying to straddle the respect she knows her elder is owed with a response to the disapproval she anticipates from her. Surely, Katara’s— _Kanna’s_ —features spell out, this woman who so embodies so much of the traditionalism of their society wouldn’t, won’t approve…

Yugoda quickly dispels her of that notion. “Good! He should, after the fight you gave him yesterday!”

Katara blinks. “Right. Thanks.” A pause, then she continues. “So, I just wanted to tell you that I won’t be in your healing lessons any more—”

“Why not?”

“Well…I’m learning to _fight_.”

“And that’s wonderful! But why should it mean you don’t also learn to heal?”

“I...I thought in your Tribe, people only learned one or the other.” Her face maps out confusion like stormy seas. (Like those that Kanna had had to navigate, alone, all those years ago?)

(What would she, Kanna, have said, had she told Yugoda what she was planning, where she was going, had she come even to say goodbye? _I can’t stay here and be free. It’s one or the other._ )

In the present, Yugoda smiles at Kanna’s granddaughter. “I suppose that’s been true until now. But a woman has never learned to fight here, either. And I see no reason why if she were going to do that, she couldn’t learn both.”

( _It’s not_ , Yugoda might have insisted, back then. _It’s not one or the other! It can be both! You can stay here and be free! We can fight this, make change,_ together, _Kanna!_ )

“In fact,” she continues. “I think if you’re fighting, you _should_ learn to heal, if you can—especially if you’re traveling with the Avatar, who will unfortunately most likely be a target. Healing is more effective the sooner you can begin to treat the injury, and if you can begin to work on it while still on the battlefield, so much the better. I’ve often thought that more of our _men_ ought to learn healing for that very reaso—”

“But you’d...you’d still be willing to teach me?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”

“I...I don’t know, I just _assumed_ …”

(Is that what Kanna would have responded? _I just assumed you wouldn’t approve, Yugoda…_ )

“You shouldn’t make such assumptions.” Her voice is quiet. She glances away.

“Right…Sorry.”

(Would she have stayed, had she known?)

“So…When can we start?” 

It’s the hesitance in the girl’s voice prompts Yugoda to look up again, gaze into her eyes. Kanna is there, true, but there’s something else there too, a softness, that Kanna never quite carried in her features—perhaps which circumstances had never quite allowed her to feel, she who carried the burden of pain and desperation and fear and _loneliness_ , because she didn’t know her friend would have carried it with her…and Yugoda never saw how much she was suffering…she should have seen, should have _helped_ … 

But that possibility is gone, like that version of Kanna, like the future they might have shared, living side-by-side. And in the here and now, Katara stands, carrying so much of Kanna in her, but eyes and face _her own._

Asking Yugoda to help her _heal._

How could she delay? “Let’s begin immediately!”

Katara smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I love comments!


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